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Keystone
Weekly This week's Key Points: *From the Director's Desk,*
*Kit Connections,* and *On the Lighter Side*
Recent Mailings and Due Dates: Electricity Connections: (STC Kit: "Electric Circuits" Fourth Grade) Teachers like Jason Gish of Conewago Elementary School who like to enrich the house wiring activity of "Electrical Circuits" may find the following websites useful. Jason used real blueprints in his classroom to highlight real-world connections of house building. More background information about blueprints for teachers may be found in the first listed website. In addition, Jason asked his students to consider all details possible when they were wiring their houses, just like real electricians must follow electrical codes. Start at the next listed site and click through a series of slides that show the eventual overload of a circuit. Although the content is too complex for fourth grade students, the schematics may offer the class some ideas (or questions) about the number of appliances that they can plan for their simple circuits. Another site providing real-world diagrams is also listed below. The PBS show: "This Old House" offers printable floor plans on this website. Students could either look at the floorplans on the classroom computer or teachers might display some prints as examples of how the experts detail their designs when building houses. The children may also find it interesting to view the finished houses.
Here are the websites:
http://www.codecheck.com/eleccode.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/thisoldhouse/projects/sanf
ran/floorplans.html Middle school teachers looking for links that contain information about technology will want to access the following site. Photocopiers are a commonly used form of technology and most students have access to this relatively modern device. However, few of us have any understanding about how a copier works. Actually, the machine uses electrostatic charges applied to toner particles and has understandable science behind the technology. Middle school teachers who are reviewing content regarding electricity prior to teaching electronics may want their students to view this website. The steps of the process used for photocopying and laser printing are visually displayed by clicking on the arrow to advance through each page.
Here's the address: On the Lighter Side It just goes to show that good observation is the key to finding out about unknowns. A funny story circulated recently about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle evidently told of a time when he climbed into a taxi cab in Paris. Before he could utter a word, the driver turned to him and asked, "Where can I take you, Mr. Doyle?" Doyle was flabbergasted. He asked the driver if he had ever seen him before. "No, sir," the driver responded, "I have never seen you before." Then he explained: "This morning's paper had a story about you being on vacation in Marseilles. This is the taxi stand where people who return from Marseilles always come to. Your skin color tells me you have been on vacation. The ink-spot on your right index finger suggests to me that you are a writer. Your clothing is very English, and not French. Adding up all those pieces of information, I deduced that you are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle." "This is truly amazing!" the writer exclaimed. "You are a real-life counterpart to my fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes!" "There is one other thing," the driver said. "What is that?" "Your name is on the front of your suitcase."
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The Franklin Institute is the Demonstration Site for the
Eisenhower
Mid-Atlantic Consortium, providing science and math
resources for teachers.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641. © 2003. All rights reserved.
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